October gave us one of the toughest choices yet for Game of the Month, since we awarded so many games with Must Have status. We’ll list them all in this article, but only one game consumed the lives of everyone who played it: Game Dev Story.

Game Dev Story puts gamers in their dream job of overseeing a video game company that will develop and market games over the course of decades. From the 8-bit cartridge era to CD and DVD-games, Game Dev Story shows technological evolution the way Spore demonstrated biological evolution.

Game Dev Story is simply one of the most addictive sim games available, since the demands of the market require you to never stop growing, training, and challenging your workforce. With its humor, unique gameplay, and reverence for everyone in the gaming business, Game Dev Story is our favorite game this month.

Our runner-up is Modern Combat 2, a Call of Duty-like first-person shooter that offers an unprecedented level of graphical polish. The real reason to download Modern Combat 2 is not the single-player campaign, which is excellent, but rather the 10-player online deathmatches. Like in Call of Duty, your character can level up with online experience, making MC2 feel like two amazing games in one.

We find ourselves in a difficult situation reviewing a game about making video games. Should we judge Game Dev Story by the same metrics the game’s virtual reviewers use when they evaluate our virtual games? Or are we a bit more sympathetic now, knowing what companies have to go through to put a piece of entertainment software in our hands?

Game Dev Story doesn’t address every single detail of the video game industry, but it does provide a sweeping overview. You start the game in the early 1980s with four desks and a small pile of cash, and must immediately begin making your first game. You get to pick the genre and setting, and your coders get to work.

So meta it’s making our heads hurt.

They’ll improve your game in four main areas: Fun, Creativity, Graphics, and Sound, but you also have to pay attention to the level of hype your game and company receive. These can be artificially inflated with a big advertising budget, but that takes away from your precious development dollars.

At every stage of your virtual game’s development, you’ll have some hard choices to make. Do you hire an outside talent to spruce up a game’s graphics, or throw it to the company designer? Should you develop award-winning games for the latest and greatest consoles, or pump out cheap garbage to make a quick buck? This level of complexity is a rare thing for iPhone strategy games.

Game Dev Story, for a game that focuses on the process of developing games, leaves a bit to be desired in its presentation. The action takes place entirely in a letterboxed portrait mode, and you’ll only leave the four walls of your tiny office to attend the occasional press conference, awards show, or convention.

Yes, you can hire booth babes in this game.

But Game Dev Story makes up for this in a big way with its humor and charm. Parodies of popular game systems and industry luminaries can be found throughout the game’s 20-year campaign, and half of the fun is discovering the next new system like the Senga Uranus or Sonny PlayStatus.

Plus, Game Dev Story requires you to move immediately from one project to the next, making it nearly impossible to put down. As soon as you’ve wrapped up one virtual game, it goes to market, is scored by virtual reviewers, and money rolls in for almost a year before it’s off the shelves. Meanwhile, you have to develop your next game or risk having the industry move on to the next big thing without you.

We spend a lot of time immersed in video game culture and business, so Game Dev Story is incredibly absorbing to us. If you’re not quite as obsessed with games, Game Dev Story might be too meta for you, but we found it to be a heartfelt love letter to everyone involved in the business of having fun: developers, players, and even reviewers. If you grew up with games, Game Dev Story tells the story of your life. It’s a true gamer’s game.

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Industrial Toys has released it’s follow-up to the great Midnight Star. In Renegade, a much more casual game, the focus is on short bursts of play and the never-ending constant upgrading of weapons and gear. This game brings the great controls for a mobile FPS that the previous version had, but focuses less on the story and more on the frantic gameplay.

Heroes of Loot 2 is an update to the original that brings even more to love of the original. This time around the player chooses two player types to take into the dungeon, switching between them in the game as needed.

Heroes of Loot 2 is 50% off right now for launch.

After their job, of keeping the dungeons in balance, was done, our heroes needed a new job. Roaming the lands they found a call for heroes, a castle in need, possible even a damsel in distress?

Pick two heroes to take into the adventure, controlling both heroes and using their special skills to navigate the dangerous castle hallways, rooms and floors. Switching between the two characters to solve quests, puzzles, and of course clear the dungeons of all evil.

Human Resources Corporation, from some of the same fine folks that brought us World of Goo is a puzzle games that makes some of the basics of programming into a fun little exercise.

The premise is that the player is a new recruit in a corporation that need to tell other in game characters how to move and act by giving a set of program commands to complete tasks. It’s a great introduction to the logic used in programming and a fun little game with great personality. Which is expected considering the team that created this.

Temple Run 2 has done it again. Expanded into a whole new world with the Blazing Sands expansion. Available now in the game.

Touch Arcade notes:

It’s called “Blazing Sands,” and as you can see from the above trailer, you’ll be running through canyons along side raging rapids and Egyptian-y looking statues while marauding vines are smacking you in the face… Which really isn’t much of a surprise as vines in video games seem to be jerks almost 100% of the time. Of course there’s new stuff to unlock too between new outfits and Blazing Sands artifacts. If you collect ’em all, you’ll even get a swanky new hat.

From Martin Magni, the developer of the great Odd Bot Out, Mekorama hit the App Store this week. This charming puzzle game has the player guide a robot through a series of very unique 3D puzzles. The puzzles have shades of Monument Valley without the Escher inspired vibe.

One of the features that really sets this game apart from others is the integrated level editor. This lets players create their own levels and share them via a simple QR code integrated image. Take a look at the new levels shared on Twitter with the #Mekorama hashtag. I’ve even created one to test the path finding skills of that little robot.

Mekorama is free in the App Store with a pay what you want price model.

There have been a lot of games that have aped the style of Monument Valley, but not that have really gotten the idea and complexity of the game. That is until Evo Explores. Evo Explores really understand the game and does a great job of adding puzzle types to the original that it unashamedly takes inspiration from. It’s so good that members of the Monument Valley team have remarked how impressed they are.

But beside that, the game can stand on its own as well. It’s a great suspension of belief type puzzler with new and interesting mechanics and is just plain fun. The story that goes along is a little weak, but then again that’s just a small part of the game. Well worth a download.

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